Its like having a mini factory in your own home: the Reprap machine consists of a half-meter frame enclosing its fabrication workspace, motors, electronic circuitry and an extruder — a device that can squirt out complex three-dimensional patterns of molten plastic filaments that will ultimately solidify into the shape of your 3D object.

How it works: software on a PC takes design files produced by 3-D drawing programs and turns them into instructions that are sent to the Reprap over a USB connection.